"A Real Eye Opener": Can Parent-Faculty Partnerships Enhance Learning and Teaching in the Higher Education Classroom?

This paper examines a portion of the findings from the Ohio Higher Education Partnership Project (OHEPP), a federally funded project designed to develop a model for promoting greater levels of participation within institutions of higher education by parents of children with disabilities. From 1997 to 2001, OHEPP recruited, trained and supported parent-faculty teams within 12 institutions of higher education in Ohio. Parent involvement through those teams assumed a variety of shapes, the most common being that of some form of "co-instruction." Initial quantitative and qualitative analyses of student evaluations suggest that the involvement in higher education of parents of children with disabilities can affect not only student understanding, but also, perhaps, student behavior. (Author/SG)